WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman
Ron Paul today denounced the national ID card provisions contained
in the intelligence bill being voted on in the U.S. House of
Representatives, while urging his colleagues to reject the bill and
its new layers of needless bureaucracy.

"National ID cards are not
proper in a free society," Paul stated. "This is America, not Soviet
Russia. The federal government should never be allowed to demand
papers from American citizens, and it certainly has no
constitutional authority to do so."

"A national identification
card, in whatever form it may take, will allow the federal
government to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions
of every American," Paul continued. "History shows that governments
inevitably use such power in harmful ways. The 9/11 commission,
whose recommendations underlie this bill, has called for internal
screening points where identification will be demanded. Domestic
travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not
free nations. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to
carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board
an airplane."

"Nationalizing standards for
drivers' licenses and birth certificates, and linking them together
via a national database, creates a national ID system pure and
simple. Proponents of the national ID understand that the public
remains wary of the scheme, so they attempt to claim they're merely
creating new standards for existing state IDs. Nonsense! This
legislation imposes federal standards in a federal bill, and it
creates a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is
still stamped with the name of your state."

"Those who are willing to allow
the government to establish a Soviet-style internal passport system
because they think it will make us safer are terribly mistaken,"
Paul concluded. "Subjecting every citizen to surveillance and
screening points actually will make us less safe, not in the least
because it will divert resources away from tracking and apprehending
terrorists and deploy them against innocent Americans! Every
conservative who believes in constitutional restraints on government
should reject the authoritarian national ID card and the nonsensical
intelligence bill itself."